Don't Let It Form Us
by rushmore
Summary: The most unusual team invading your dreams just arrived, and they're already arguing over the lines drawn in the sand. "Like most things, it started with a bang." Pride and Prejudice set in the world of Inception.
1. Didn't They Teach You Anything at School

Like most things, it started with a bang.

That's how Lizzie remembers it. The first time she went under, she felt like her bones had turned to molasses, and she couldn't move. It was agony, and when she heard the explosion go off, she heard the sound of salvation.

She woke up screaming, and Charlie wound the cord around his fingers and said, "Welcome back."

* * *

Charlie was the leader of the team. Will was the point man, Fitz provided the sedation, and Jane was the architect.

Lizzie was the forger.

* * *

"I don't know if this will work," she warned Will one day when they were under. The dreamscape, as provided by him, was a stark building in Paris that someone (probably one of their own) had bombed out. Inside the building was a maze of mirrors.

He glanced at her and watched silently as she began pulling mirrors from the walls and surrounding them around her body, making a circle. "Just try it."

She nodded and faced the mirrors. At least ten different Lizzie's blinked back at her, and Will frowned when he saw that she was shuddering.

"Lizzie-"

The figure in front of him turned and said, "Well, do I pass?"

Will gulped. Standing in front of him was his sister Giana. He hadn't seen her in four years, and then he woke up.

Charlie was kneeling beside him, fiddling with the PASIV. When he saw that Will was awake, he smiled. "Told you she was good."

With a start Will jumped up and walked over to Lizzie. "I _told _you not to base it on anyone in your past."

"I didn't," she replied, rubbing her eyes. "I've never met your sister."

Charlie abruptly stopped his work with the PASIV. "You forged Giana?"

"Yeah. Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Charlie replied, his eyes on Will, "Just unusual."

"Unprofessional," Will spat at her. He cursed and yanked his tie off. "Jesus Christ, Bennet, you're supposed to follow orders. Didn't they teach you anything at school?"

"I believe its something called independence?" She smirked and waved to Charlie on her way out of the warehouse.

Will collapsed onto the chair and ran his shaking hands through his hair. Charlie handed him a cup of tea and muttered, "I'd say something, but it's you, so…"

Will ignored him and stared down at his tea.

* * *

Charlie and Will were roommates during college, and it was Charlie that recruited Will as his point man. Everyone thought that it was the other way around, that Will had asked Charlie to join him, but it was Charlie who handed Will a packet and said, "It's like nothing you've ever dreamed of," without telling him that he was basically signing his life away.

If Charlie hadn't been his best friend, Will probably would have shredded the packet and gone home to talk to Giana without a second thought.

But that was impossible now. Will didn't dream unless he was drugged, and he didn't want to be the one to take away his sister's dreams, too.

* * *

Back at their apartment, Lizzie told Jane about what had happened at the warehouse. Jane stopped her sketches and frowned. "I think you might have pushed things a little too far, Lizzie."

Lizzie rolled her eyes and dumped her bags on the couch. "We've been a team for what, a month? It's time we started testing them."

"Not everyone is going to betray you," Jane said.

Lizzie picked up the newspaper and scanned the headlines, looking for arrests, deaths, something, _anything._ "Nothing."

Jane shook her head and laughed. "It's Cobol Engineering, honey. They're the best."

"They screwed us over."

"So we moved on." Jane handed her one of the sketches and pointed to the maze she'd just drawn. "A new level for the Northern job. What do you think?"

"I think Cobol Engineering is a fucking _bitch_," she said, "And the last level was stronger; this one is too easy to get out of."

* * *

Jane was recruited by her employer at the firm she worked at. Initially the jobs had been pretty safe: a park here, a river there. But then it was bank vaults, embassies, military strongholds. Jane was hooked. She even joked to Lizzie that this was the teenage rebellion that she'd never had.

Lizzie came into the picture because one of Jane's jobs had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Lizzie was a terrible architect but a decent forger, and she'd joined the team to keep Jane safe.

In retrospect, it was one of her stupider decisions, right up there with quitting her job, and a little bit below meeting Will Darcy.

* * *

"Where did you meet this girl?" Fitz asked Charlie and Will as they stumbled in for the usual post-work night at the bar. Jack waved them over to their usual seats and Will immediately ordered a bottle of vodka. Straight.

"Jane told us about her," Charlie answered, much to Will's amusement. "Bull_shit_," he snapped. "Lizzie is Jane's sister. Who brings their siblings in on a job?"

Fitz slipped his watch off and started cleaning off the smudges, saying, "Should I be hurt by that?"

Will rolled his eyes. "Just be grateful we're not more closely related."

"Oh, I know," Fitz grinned. "I thank God for that everyday."

Charlie took a sip from his beer. "Will, Lizzie is the best we've got. She's only been with us for a month and already she's better than Jools was."

"Personality issues come up everywhere," Fitz added and reached across Will for a bowl of nuts. "Man up, Darcy."

Charlie clapped Will on his back and said, "Try not to think about it so much, okay?"

"_You _try that," he said, hating the way he sounded.

* * *

At first Lizzie hadn't believed Jane when she'd told her about what she did.

"_I build dreamscapes, Lizzie."_

"_Like soundscapes, but more pretentious?"_

"_No. I build dreams and levels so that people can invade other people's minds."_

"…_that's twisted, Jane."_

"_It's true."_

She thought that Jane was joking, making an elaborate prank the way they used to do when they were younger. They would swap sugar and salt on their father, only to switch it again on their mother, and then once more, and finally their parents would scream at them to stop, please, you're driving us crazy.

"_Lizzie, it's true."_

Lizzie had ignored Jane for two weeks, because the incessant phone calls were just too much. It was one thing to stage a prank like this, but it was quite another thing entirely to put so much energy into it.

"_Lizzie, you have to believe. I need you. I'm in trouble."_

If Lizzie really wanted to be honest, she would admit that she only believed Jane once Jane came home with blood on her arms. The job had gone horribly, horribly wrong, and Lizzie hates that it took the sight of her sister's blood for her to understand.

After that, Lizzie kept a bottle of Motrin stashed in her purse, and she looked both ways before crossing every street. Her parents prided her on being so healthy and aware, two words that Lizzie found highly ironic given that she and her sister were invading people's minds.

She chose not to mention that.

* * *

The next day at the warehouse, Lizzie pulled Will aside and apologized. He stared at his hands and muttered, "Forget about it. Could have happened to anyone."

Lizzie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded. "I appreciate your understanding."

They went back to work preparing for their upcoming job. An investor for an old maritime company needed some help with his rival's business plans.

"Textbook case," Charlie said to Jane, who rolled her eyes.

They had been quietly flirting for a while now, but both of them knew the dangers of getting involved. For them, the farthest they would ever go in confessing any feelings would be ordering an extra cappuccino for the other without being told to. Sometimes he wanted to reach out and grab hold of her hand, just to see what it would feel like. But he'd never done it.

If ordering an extra cappuccino was equivalent to saying "Hey, I think like you," then holding hands was like an invitation to move in together. So whenever that particular desire flared up, he would step back from her under the pretense of having forgotten something and run to bathroom, spinning his totem wildly on the palm of his hand, trying not to hope that this was all a dream.

It never toppled. This was his reality, and he would just have to accept that.

Charlie shook himself out of his thoughts and said to the rest of the team, "Fitz has given us the sedation, not too strong, just enough for about an hour's training work today." With a slight grin, he added, "I hope that your schedules are clear. It's going to be a busy afternoon."

A day at the warehouse wasn't complete without one of Charlie's bad jokes. It was just one of those things.

Will rolled his eyes as they all settled down next to the PASIV machines. Fitz smirked at them and said, "Sweet dreams," and then they were under.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

An Inception and Pride & Prejudice crossover? Blasphemous!

I was watching Inception the other day when this idea floated into my head, and boom. There went my sanity.

The title comes from Bon Iver's fantastic song Creature Fear_:_

_The so many territories_

__

Ready to reform

Don't let it form us

Don't let it form us

_The creature fear  
_

I thought it was appropriate for our little gang of misfits.

You know you want to review...


	2. Wednesdays and Saturdays and Shootings

_But you can set sail to the west if you want to_

_And past the horizon till I can't even see you_

_Far from here where the beaches are wide_

_Just leave me your wake to remember you by_

- "Boats and Birds" by Gregory and the Hawk

* * *

Dying comes easily in a dream. A building collapses over someone's head, a bullet lodges itself in someone's blood, a subconscious tears someone to pieces.

It's the waking up that's hard, but no one ever told you that; you had to learn it for yourself.

* * *

The team was on their second week of training for the maritime job. Fitz was still fiddling with the sedation, and Jane was becoming more nervous about her maze.

"What if it's too simple?" She asked Charlie one afternoon after the team had finished a grueling two-hour dream where Lizzie's projections had pulverized their bodies.

Charlie didn't even look at the map when he said, "It's perfect."

"But the training-"

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but your sister is almost… _too_ closed off," he said.

Jane was confused. "Isn't that good a thing, though, for her job?"

"Yeah, for a job," he said.

* * *

When Will was twenty, his father died. It was quick, painless, or at least as painless as dying could ever be.

A year later, Will had died at least a hundred times, all of them slow and painful and burned into his brain like a tumor. He could remember the times when buildings had collapsed over his head, and how his last thought would always be _I should have said- _but then he'd wake up, and he could never remember what he had wanted to say before he died.

Sometimes Will wondered what had been going through his father's head as he lay dying, but thinking about a thing like that always gave him a headache, so he usually chose not to think about it.

* * *

It was a Wednesday when Will shot Lizzie for the first time.

Shooting her had been surprisingly easy.

"You _asshole_," Lizzie yelled when she woke up. Charlie, working on a sketch of something, looked up from his desk.

"He shot you," Charlie stated, barely flicking his eye's over to Will's still dreaming form. "Won an award for marksmanship, you know."

Lizzie rolled her eyes and laced her hands behind her head, touching the spot where Will had fired a bullet into her skull.

"I can't feel it."

Will was awake now. "Of course you can't."

"Because it was a dream," Charlie reminded her. "It was a dream."

"No," Will said, looking at her, "I wasn't trying that hard."

"What a comforting thought."

* * *

Lizzie had never really thought much of the idea of love, and yes, love was an _idea- _a brilliant one, but an idea all the same. It existed in a raw, hazy form, floating above people's heads and latching onto their hearts without really living in them. She was confident that if love lived in people, it would die of a heart attack.

"You're too young to be so cynical" was something that Jane had once told her, back when they were in high school and full of hope and Big Plans and wide, wide skies, before dreaming and dying and reminders that this was real.

* * *

"How's our esteemed architect?" Fitz beamed at Jane and slung an arm around her shoulder. It was the third week of training, and they'd all died in gas explosion. Now, in real time, the team was at Jack's Bar. Will had opted to go back to his apartment and sleep, but Charlie knew better.

Jane groaned and buried her head onto his shoulder. "We're all going to _die_."

"A little late for that attitude, isn't it?" Lizzie said with a smile.

"Such morbid thoughts," Charlie added, handing her a beer. "Remember what I told you?"

Jane fiddled with the locket around her neck and tried not to blush. _It's perfect_. "Thanks."

Lizzie watched them out of the corner of her eye, frowning thoughtfully when Charlie pushed Fitz away and sat down with Jane. She was pretty sure that she had never seen Jane touch Charlie once, but she would rest her head on Fitz's shoulders or pat Will's arm without a second thought. But she would never touch Charlie; out of everything they did, the thought of touching Charlie Bingley seemed to terrify Jane the most.

* * *

Will never went back to his apartment to sleep; he went back to his apartment to get away from the explosions and casual killing and the burnt feeling of Lizzie Bennet in his eyesight.

Sometimes he would write letters to Giana, letters that he never sent, in which he told her everything. He wrote one letter about what it felt like to die; he wrote another about waking up for the first time, and that night, he wrote her a letter about shooting Lizzie Bennet in the back of her head.

_Giana,_

_Shot someone today. Her name is Elizabeth. Don't know how I feel about it._

_I got a good shot off, though._

_Miss you._

_Will_

He didn't know why he wrote these letters. He probably had some masochistic streak in his psyche or something.

* * *

After Jack's Bar closed for the night, Lizzie said goodbye to Charlie and Fitz and dragged Jane back to their apartment.

They were silent in the cab. Jane was tracing patterns on her hands, and Lizzie stared out the window, watching the streetlights pass by and scatter light onto the glass.

After Lizzie had set Jane up with a bowl, a washcloth, and a jug of water, she said, "You and Charlie…"

Even when drunk, Jane was alert. "Should never be drinking buddies."

It wasn't what Lizzie had been asking about, but it was what she was going to get, so she smoothed back Jane's hair and straightened her shirt before saying goodnight.

* * *

Will was in the middle of watching _the Daily Show _when he heard the lock on his door turn. He grabbed his gun and only put it down once he heard Charlie's voice. Charlie's very _drunk _voice.

"Will," slurred Charlie, "I think I'm drunk."

"That's an understatement," Will replied, and helped him into the bathroom. "I thought you said you wouldn't drink so much."

"I _didn't_," Charlie told him, latching onto his arm, "but _she _did."

"Who?"

Charlie threw up on the bathroom tiles, and Will never heard his answer, but he was pretty sure that the name _Jane Bennet _was now lodged somewhere on his floor.

* * *

Saturdays were technically their day off, so Will was surprised to walk into the warehouse and see Lizzie working on the floor.

"Oh," he said. She looked up, chalk in hand, a confused look on her face.

"I thought you had the day off," she explained.

"Oh," he said again. Lizzie dusted chalk off her hands and stood up.

"I was trying to draw a maze."

He frowned. "That's Jane's job."

She smiled tightly and said nothing.

"Well, don't stop on my account." He walked over to his desk and laid out the plans for the maritime job.

Lizzie watched him, and then she went back to work, drawing a chalk maze of pastel lines on concrete.

She hadn't made an exit for the design, but she was working on it. They worked in silence for several hours, and they left the warehouse as the sun was coming down.

"Another day gone," she said as they walked out the door. Will watched her walk away.

* * *

Author's Note:

I really have no idea where I'm going with this piece, but exploring it is just so much _fun. _

A **huge **shout out to UndeniablyMe for being the first reviewer. Go check out her stories.


	3. Ice Skating

_Free from it all_

_I'm not gonna change till I want to_

_And I'm free from the world_

_where I built too many roads_

- "In Transit" by Albert Hammond Jr.

* * *

To put it mildly, the maritime job was not a success.

Will shot Lizzie too early; Fitz didn't add enough sedation; Jane was torn to pieces by a projection, and Charlie couldn't find the safe. He had gone into the house where the safe was supposed to be, but all he could find was a maze of mirrors. His haunted face had stared back at him, and then the ceiling collapsed on him, burying his body in shards of glass.

He was the last to wake up, and to his surprise, Jane was kneeling beside him.

"Oh, God-" She reached her hand up but stopped it abruptly, leaving it hanging in the air between them. In a calmer voice, she said, "So that's everyone."

"Great," Lizzie said. "Really fucking _great._"

Will groaned and hid his face in his hands.

The first test of the Dream Team, as Fitz has called them, was an absolute failure.

* * *

Will doesn't know what it is about Lizzie. He keeps shooting her too early in training sessions, even though there is no danger, even though the disaster of the maritime job has passed. The job itself wouldn't have meant that much if not for the fact that it was the first job the team had taken; Will doesn't believe in luck, but he does believe in professionalism.  
So after yelling at Charlie about the maze (what the _hell _was that about) and telling him that he needed to get his mind together or else they'd all end up in limbo, and after the return argument from Charlie that he needed to invest in some anger management classes, Will had come to realize that, on some molecular or biological or chemical level, he saw Lizzie Bennet as a threat to his safety. It was the first rule of the dream tech: safe yourself before the others. Safe yourself, and destroy the enemy before they destroy you.

But he can't explain why every time he shoots her, he tells himself that he's really saving her.

* * *

Jane didn't appreciate Charlie's addition of the maze of mirrors to her floor plan. She also didn't appreciate the way he made her act in front of the team, almost like a worried- but she can't say that, because it would never happen, she can't think that word even though it's always on her mind, like some honing device or maybe it's really a tumor taking over her chest cavity, maybe it's a disease spreading through her circulatory system and maybe-

"I was going to be doctor," Jane had told Charlie on the first day she met him. "A surgeon."

"Why didn't you?" Charlie asked, bemused.

She shrugged. "After a while, cutting people open became boring."

Charlie stared at her, and then he said, "I've got something better."

"A job offer?" Jane asked, still thinking about knives.

"Of sorts."

* * *

Lizzie and Jane had grown up a little too quickly: fairies held their imagination only for a year, and then make-believe worlds lost their appeal. Their parents hadn't known what to do with them. Looking back on their childhood, Lizzie realized that where they are now was probably bound to happen. Too bored for fake worlds and too old for real ones, what other worlds were left besides the ones in their heads?

* * *

"You keep _shooting _me," Lizzie snapped at Will. The team was at Jack's Bar after their most recent training session, and Will was staring down at his beer. Fitz had crammed himself into a booth filled with models, entertaining them with stories about his fabulously British upbringing.

Charlie and Jane were sitting at opposite ends of the bar, and failing miserably at trying to look like two people who did could care less about what happened to the other.

Will lifted up his head and looked at Lizzie. "Those are fighting words."

"Astute observation. I wonder, is that what they teach you in Alpha Male Academy, or is that a natural talent?"

"Talent like mine can't be taught," Will took another gulp of beer. He was not going to be pulled into an argument with her, especially when she was looking like _that, _all dressed in black and hair left long. Will had a thing for long hair.

She rolled her eyes and said, "I've proved myself plenty of times. Stop shooting me, or I'll shoot _you._"

"I'd like to see you try," Will scoffed, and instantly wanted to die. Oh, God. This woman was supposed to be the enemy. He was not supposed to be challenging her to a suicide mission.

"You're disgusting," she said. "You're arrogant, you think that just because you _started _the team you have all the right to judge everyone in it, and I'm here to tell you that you have no right whatsoever to do that. _Get over yourself_."

Will was shocked. No. He was angry. No. He was furious and possibly drunk. He wanted to yell at her to get out his life, he wanted to tell her about Giana and the unsent letters, he wanted to have never met her, but all he could come up with was "Actually, Charlie started the team."

He probably shouldn't have been so surprised that she stormed out.

It was only later, once he was back home, that he thought about what she said, and the worst part, he realized, was that everything she had said was true.

* * *

Their next job was for a banking firm that was concerned about the value of their new client. Kid stuff, but it paid the rent.

The job went perfectly, and Will didn't shoot Lizzie. He let her die.

When they woke up, Lizzie was staring at the ceiling with wide eyes, and then, so quickly that he thought he might have imagined it, she smiled.

* * *

"I'm getting worried about you," Jane told Lizzie on Saturday morning after she had caught Lizzie sneaking out the front door with a map under her arm. "You know that Saturday is our day off. We should do something."

"Jane, we steal people's secrets. What should we be doing on our day off? Ice-skating?" Lizzie teased, locking the door on her way out.

Jane took her advice and went ice-skating.

When she came home with bruises on her arms and a red nose, Lizzie handed her a cup of tea and said, "Just like old times."

Jane rubbed her arm and ignored the memories.

* * *

Author's Note:

A short update because of my research paper, fondly known as the bane of my existence.

Next chapter is the totem!chapter. SO EXCITED.


End file.
